Because it trivializes people who have a legitimate need for an accommodation of their faith and it rewarded (to the tune of 150K USD) someone who chose to ignore the (assumed) real safety concerns of the company and the truth about this technology in relation to the context of the “mark of the beast” in context of even his sect of Christianity.
Those who are missing the fingers necessary for the time clock but who can still perform the job have a legitimate reason to be accommodated. This man doesn’t.
Well the Supreme Court ruled in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., that facts have no bearing on whether a religious exemption is reasonable. It doesn’t matter that that contraceptives don’t causes abortions, or that fingerprint scanners don’t implant you with the “mark of the beast”, or an other fundamentally and demonstrably untrue thing you believe. all that matters is that you say your invisible sky friend objects.
Yay! Take that you enlightenment elitist rationalist bastards!
Perhaps he was mistaken in whether it violated his beliefs, though that’s not really a defence for the company if they didn’t do a proper job of explaining why it didn’t violate his beliefs instead of simple firing him when he refused.
Well, that’s the thing. They did do that. It didn’t matter. He said Jesus didn’t care about their facts, all that mattered was that he “profoundly” believed his false idea.
I’ll say it. Fuck religion. They’re simple behaviors you can entertain or not. It’s not an immutable characteristic, it’s a belief. A patently absurd belief, and we shouldn’t accommodate it,
I would say the opposite, this suit points out how all religious accommodations are trivial. There is no way to distinguish this man’s sincere belief from any other person’s sincere belief. Religious beliefs are generally irrational - as Antonin Scalia noted during a Supreme Court hearing - and there is nothing inherently more or less “legitimate” to this man’s religious belief about the mark of the beast than some other person’s religious belief about head wear, exposed forearms, abortifacients, meat and cheese, pork, dogs, five pointed stars, technology, buttons, alcohol, women, modesty, the Sabbath, etc.
IIRC, the company lost because they did make exceptions for people with damaged fingers, thereby proving that they could make reasonable accommodations. The biometrics policy was not inviolable. Therefore it was not a safety reason that they denied him an exemption.
I’m generally not sympathetic to requests for religious exemptions, however if a company makes exemptions for other purposes, I don’t see how they can legitimately deny a person requesting that same exemption because of religious reasons.
Because it trivializes people who have a legitimate need for an accommodation of their faith and it rewarded (to the tune of 150K USD) someone who chose to ignore the (assumed) real safety concerns of the company and the truth about this technology in relation to the context of the “mark of the beast” in context of even his sect of Christianity.
What legitimate faith accommodations are being ignored? And what safety concerns does the company have with manual timesheets? If they did have real safety concerns he likely wouldn’t have won the case.
Those who are missing the fingers necessary for the time clock but who can still perform the job have a legitimate reason to be accommodated. This man doesn’t.
A company shouldn’t be in the position to label someones religious beliefs as legitimate or illegitimate. The question is whether they’re sincere and can be accommodated.
What if the turban interferes with the hard hat? What if the beard prevents a good fit of an oxygen mask? Whom to pick the fight with - Equal Employment Opportunity, Civil Rights, or OSHA? You cannot make them all happy.
But the scanner manufacturer offered a reasonable alternative that didn’t have any contradictions with his scripture. Would you say that this is not offering a reasonable alternative as this doesn’t require the use of his right hand?
“Scripture references the Mark of the Beast only on the right hand and
forehead; and suggests that persons with concerns about taking the Mark
of the Beast ‘be enrolled’ (meaning, use the hand scanner) with their
left hand and palm facing up.”
No, I don’t think it is reasonable for the company to try to impose it’s interpretation of scripture on the employee. It isn’t up to them to tell him what to believe. And I say that as a staunch secularist and non-theist.
They are welcome to offer their alternative, but he’s not obligated to aceed to it. Nor is he obligated to have written scripture to base his beliefs on.
If they hadn’t made other exceptions for maimed hands then they might have had a case.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster is whispering in my ear that paying my share of the taxes that support the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s work on this case would be heresy. How convenient for me that the IRS will stop collecting once I let them in on the situation.
The only reason people may dislike your pedantry is because there are several of us in the running for the Pedant Pennant and it just means more competition.
Hmm, regardless of the reasons why this person didn’t want to use the biometric scanner, is it actually legal for employers to force employees to use biometric tracking? What if an employee objected to it on privacy grounds?
It isn’t tracking them everywhere they go, it is a safety scan in scan out system for a workplace with very hazardous conditions.
This isn’t about timesheets, it is simply a realtime scan in and scan out system for the mine to know who exactly is currently in different parts of the mine at any given time. This is a very important safety protocol improvement in mines and makes the difference between life and death. Biometric scanners ONLY take a picture of your hand and compare metrics such as the vascular pattering to a database. It doesn’t mark your hand, it takes a picture of your hand exactly as it is, or as this man believes exactly as his God created it.
What if he believed that merely entering the mine marked him? or not being able to smoke in flammable areas marked him? both those are equally rational to his level of crazy. Where do you draw the line?
No one is making him work there. Private secular businesses shouldn’t have to accommodate religious craziness, they shouldn’t be able to discriminate but that is a very different thing, apples and oranges.
For instance, if a quadriplegic applied for, let’s say… A technician for one of those giant mining trucks, they probably wouldn’t be able to do their job without unreasonable accommodation. So it is with this religious guy, who is mentally disabled by having a complete lack of rational thought.
But what about the fact that the employer gets to collect and store their biometric details? Would you be happy if your employer demanded your fingerprints and DNA profile?
I’m reminded of my long-ago days as a grocery clerk. This granola girl came through my line, and when I tried to scan her lettuce (pre-wrapped, w/a bar code), she freaked out and said,“Don’t scan my produce!”
When I asked why, she said, “It reverses the energy of the food.”
“What about boxes?”
“That food is already negative.”
Before I knew it, these words were coming out of my mouth: “How about if I scan it twice? Won’t that reverse it back?”
She paused, then huffed. “It doesn’t work that way.”
